Colleges confront shootings with training
Hundreds of colleges across the nation have purchased a training program that teaches professors and students not to take campus threats lying down but to fight back with any "improvised weapon," from a backpack to a laptop computer.
From this article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26410431/
To that, I ask: "Why not just let them carry real, effective self-defense weapons, instead of making them improvise weapons in the middle of an attack?"
That aside, I have to say that I'm hearted by the fact that it seems like the general population is, to some extent at least, starting to take tentative steps towards taking self-defense seriously. Understanding that capitulation and waiting for the calvary to show up isn't the only or the best option would be a pretty significant change to the "give them what they want and hope for the best" philosophy that we as a society have lived by for so long at such cost. It may be a baby step, but I'd say that it's definitely a step in the right direction.